A play about the reincarnation of the Victorian computing pioneer Ada Lovelace has won this year’s Women’s prize for playwriting.
Intelligence, by Sarah Grochala, follows Lovelace’s attempts to forge a career for herself as a serious scientist in 1840s London and being continually obstructed by men.
But in an unexpected twist of fate, Lovelace finds herself repeatedly reincarnated and gets the chance to try for fame again, first as Grace Hopper (creator of COBOL) in 1940s America, and then as Steve Jobs in 1980s Silicon Valley. Eventually, confronted with the destruction of all her work by a shady tech billionaire, she realises that it is the very nature of intelligence that she should be fighting for.
Launched in 2019 and produced by Ellie Keel and Paines Plough, the Women’s prize for playwriting is the only national prize to champion and support playwrights who identify as female or non-binary.
“Sarah Grochala’s Intelligence is one of the plays I’ve been dreaming of finding since the idea for this prize first came to me,” Keel said. “It is powerful, original, expansive, ambitious – all the things that audiences hope for and deserve when they book to see a new play.
“Sarah’s writing is witty and luminescent, vividly bringing to life her detailed research into the story of a fascinating and overlooked scientist and computing pioneer, Ada Lovelace, whose struggle to be recognised and fulfil her full potential sadly is, or has been, shared by so many women throughout history.”
Grochala, a neurodiverse Anglo-Polish playwright, was awarded £12,000 in respect of an option for Ellie Keel Productions and Paines Plough to co-produce her play.
The real Ada Lovelace, who lived from 1815 to 1852, was an English mathematician and writer, known primarily for her work on Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation.
The daughter of the poet Lord Byron and the educational reformer Lady Byron, Lovelace has been called the first computer programmer.
Previously, Grochala has written the Amnesty award-winning play S-27. She also writes audio episodes of Doctor Who, specialising in stories featuring robots and alien invasions in historical settings.
This year’s competition received more than 1,000 entries, which were judged by a panel including the National Theatre director, Indhu Rubasingham; the playwrights April de Angelis and Chris Bush, the Guardian editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner; the journalist Samira Ahmed; the actor Noma Dumezweni, the literary agent Mel Kenyon; the journalist and critic Anya Ryan, and the head of play development at the National Theatre, Nina Steiger.
In past years, the prize has gone to Reasons You Should(n’t) Love Me by Amy Trigg, You Bury Me by Ahlam, and Consumed by Karis Kelly.
Keel said in 2024 it felt “particularly poignant” to be awarding the prize to Intelligence “in the building next door to Ada’s London home for many years, 12 St James’s Square”.
The joint artistic directors of Paines Plough, Katie Posner and Charlotte Bennett, and Debo Adebayo, deputy artistic director, added: “We are thrilled to be celebrating the finalists and the winner for the third year of this incredible prize, which not only champions outstanding talent, but continues to actively diversify our national theatrical landscape.”
They said Intelligence “blew us away with its boldness of storytelling and ambitious structure, which sees a central character cross centuries and discover what continues to inhibit female success”.
